1953 Run

I guess I'm not surprised that I ended up like this. I'm lying face down on a dock, listening to the distant shouts of men and the squealing of car tires as they speed down the street away from me. I'm watching my blood pool out before me, such a deep, dark red it is. It's strange how when you're shot, you feel such tranquility. I can feel all three paths that the bullets had carved through my flesh and the burning in my organs in which they are still embedded. Though I suppose this tranquility was also from the fact that I knew that I actually did something I could be proud of in my last moments. Cynthia...she was safe now. She was finally free from the chains that bound her...and now I was as well...

This all started when I joined the Lagromarsino family. I had just turned nineteen; jobs were hard to find in New York City when you couldn't read or write and grew up a dirt poor orphan on the streets. I was just beginning to give up on ever making any kind of life for myself when I accidently walked right into a big gun and knife battle. It was the Romanov and Lagromarsino families; they were chasing each other down like a pack of wild dogs, knives lashing for each other's throats and guns pumping every other person full of lead, like one of those black and white films you see in the theaters.

It was common knowledge that the Romanovs and Lagromarsinos hated each other's guts. The whole dispute between the two families started over a woman, allegedly. Patrizio Lagromarsino and Nikon Romanov both were in love with the same woman, so they strived to have her for their own. As a result of all that the woman had gone through from being loved and kept by two big mafia dons, she eventually died of depression and stress. The two families never forgave each other after that.

So there I'm standing, right smack in the middle of the two families with bullets flying over my head and slurs of Russian and Italian cursing being flung here and there. I ducked into an alley to hide, and that's when I saw a girl being dragged off to a car. She looked no more than fifteen; her hands bound with rope, her mouth gagged, and a knife up against her throat. Her eyes were wide with terror. I didn't think I was a very chivalrous man – didn't even know what the word meant 'till Giulio told me about it – but I end up running out there despite all that was going on around me and tackled the man from behind.

It had to be one of my most stupid moments. I didn't have anything but my fists; this man had a knife, and he was much bigger than I was. He released the girl momentarily to take care of me, his knife angled at my side to slit my insides out. I somehow caught hold of his weapon arm and held it at bay, but the man brought his knee up and knocked the breath out of my lungs, stunning me momentarily. The man then came at me with quick swipes and managed to slice my cheek before I fell backward to avoid losing my eyes. I quickly then thrust my leg out and swept the large man off his feet, the knife clattering to the street nearby. I lunged for it, grasping the hilt, and then turning just as the man was about to leap atop me, I plunged the knife upward, digging it into his chest.

He fell down, blood pooling out beneath him. I was breathing fast, adrenaline rushing through my veins at top speed.

That's when I remembered the girl.

I stood on shaky legs, and moved over to her, using the bloodied knife to cut her free.

When I took out the gag in her mouth, I noticed that the gunfire had stopped, and that the Romanov family was nowhere in sight; only the Lagromarsino family was left.

"Angela!" I heard someone call, and a young man – maybe in his late twenties or so – came running up to us, putting his arms around the girl in a tight hug. "Are you alright?" He asked frantically, looking her up and down.

She nodded saying, "Yes!" Then she pointed to me, saying, "He saved my life!"

The man looked at me, noticing the knife in my hand and the dead man on the ground. He seemed to recognize him. Then he looked back up at me. "You...you killed Miloslav Romanov?" He asked, looking me in the eyes.